The inventive concepts described herein relate to a nonvolatile memory device, a storage device including the nonvolatile memory device, and/or reading and writing methods thereof.
Due to high-speed and/or low-power electronic devices, there is an increasing demand on a semiconductor memory device that operates at high speed and with a low operation voltage. As the semiconductor memory device, a magnetic memory device has been developed to satisfy such requirements. The magnetic memory device comes into the spotlight as a next-generation semiconductor memory device due to its high-speed operation and/or nonvolatile characteristic.
In general, the magnetic memory device may contain a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) pattern. The MTJ pattern is formed of two magnetic materials and an insulation layer interposed therebetween. A resistance of the MTJ pattern may vary with magnetization directions of the two magnetic materials. For example, the MTJ pattern has the greatest resistance when magnetization directions of the two magnetic materials are anti-parallel to each other, and it has the smallest resistance when magnetization directions of the two magnetic materials are parallel to each other. Data may be written/read using a difference between resistance values.